StixPicks 
Welcome to the premiere edition of the Saturday Slapshot for the 2022/2023 season. I’ll be focused on tonight’s massive 12-game main slate of NHL DFS on DraftKings and FanDuel.
Let’s dig in and see if we can make some money.
Goaltending
John Gibson ($7.1K DK/$7.3k FD) vs. New York Islanders – Similar to last season, the Ducks are going to give up a ton of shots. In their one game so far this season, the Ducks gave up 48 shots! And that was against Seattle. Even though Gibson gave up 4 goals in the game, he still ended up with nearly 26 DK points.
Volume equals saves and the more saves we can get the better with our NHL DFS goalies. I’m going to continue to target Gibson as one of my goalies, as long as he’s not facing a high-powered offense and he’s priced where he is tonight. The New York Islanders are far from a high-powered offense.
Logan Thompson ($8k DK/$8.4k FD) vs. Seattle Kraken – Should Logan Thompson get the start tonight, he’ll be one of my favorite goalies on the night. Through his first 2 games this season he’s been pretty solid, allowing just 3 goals on 54 shots. He earned the shutout in his last start against the lowly Chicago Blackhawks. This is a good spot for him tonight to continue his solid play and try to earn that number 1 goalie spot in Vegas.
Stacks
Edmonton 1 (McDavid, Kane, Puljujarvi) + Tyson Barrie vs. Calgary
There is no better player on this planet than Connor McDavid and with a sub $9k price tag I’m going to be all over him. Last season we saw McDavid’s get close to $10k so we’re getting him somewhat at a discount at just $8.6k on DK tonight. He opened the season with a hat trick. Anytime he’s on the ice there’s a strong chance he scores. He’s clicked extremely well with Evander Kane in the year that they’ve played together.
A cheap way to get exposure to this line is to add in Jesse Puljujarvi, who’s just $4.4k on DK. For someone his price, he had a decent opening night with 3 shots on goal and 2 blocked shots. We won’t get much in the way of scoring from him, but we’ll get some of those ancillary stats.
Boston 2 (Pastrnak (Pasta), Krejci, Zacha) + Hampus Lindholm vs. Arizona
The Arizona Coyotes may be epically bad this season. The only saving grace about playing in a college arena is that there won’t be many people around to watch how bad they are. I’ll be targeting NHL DFS stacks against them early and often this season. Tonight we’ll be able to target them with Boston’s second line.
My favorite on this line is going to be David Pastrnak. Although Pasta is expensive tonight at $8k, he should be able to return value in this matchup. One of the top players in the league, Pasta opened the season with a monster stat line. He finished with 6 shots on goal, 3 assists, and 1 goal. In a soft matchup like tonight, there’s no reason to think he can’t come close to that production again.
My lean right now is to pair him with David Krejci. Krejci also had a solid opening night, with a goal and 2 assists. If we can get similar production from these 2 tonight, we should be close to the top of the leaderboards. These 2 also play together on the top PP unit, making the pairing all the more effective.
St. Louis 1 (Thomas, Buchnevich, Tarasenko) vs. Columbus
The lone team yet to play a game this season, the St. Louis Blues get a soft matchup in their opener. The Blue Jackets have played just 2 games so far this season and have allowed 9 pucks in the net. 5 of those came last night against the Lightning. Having to play back-to-back after getting beaten down by the Lightning will make for a tired team.
This top line for the Blues is a solid, solid line. All 3 guys have goal upside, as both Tarasenko and Buchnevich scored at least 30 goals last season. Add in Rob Thomas who led the team in assists last year with 57 and we have a dangerous top line. This line is extremely affordable on DK tonight as only Tarasenko is over $6k. These 3 also play together on the top power-play unit.
Other stacks (Tor 1, Ott 1 2, NJ 2, Det 1, TB 1 and 2, Pit 1, Was 1)
Top Value Defenseman
- Brayden McNabb – $3.3k on DK – Gets a decent amount of shots and blocks.
- Justin Holl – $2.6k on Dk – At least 8 DK points in both games this season.
- Erik Gustafsson – $2.5k – At least 7 DK points in both games this season.
- Jordan Harris – $2.5k on DK – Through 2 games, he has 8 shots and 5 blocks
Summary
We have a full slate of NHL DFS tonight and there are a ton of options. I play on saving at goalie tonight with John Gibson and I also plan on saving on D with some value D. This will allow us to pay up for some top talent in great spots.
Make sure to check out our NHL Model.
Good luck and I hope to see you in the green!
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